On 09 January 2024, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that its members negotiating the accession of Comoros had agreed by consensus, on the terms of the country's WTO membership, paving the way for the least-developed country (LDC) to join the organisation. With the conclusion of the Working Party’s mandate, the accession package for Comoros will be submitted to ministers for a formal decision at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi on 26 to 29 February 2024.
The WTO Director-General congratulated Comoros for completing the technical work on its accession. “It has been 17 years since you filed your initial application for WTO membership, and it is now firmly within your reach. I would like to pay tribute to President [Azali] Assoumani and the country's political leadership who have provided invaluable support for the accession effort since the Working Party first met in 2016. I should also acknowledge the tremendous work done by the country's negotiators and technical experts,” the DG said.
He emphasised the importance of LDCs joining the organisation, particularly as it has been more than eight years since the conclusion of a Working Party's mandate (the accession of Afghanistan) — the longest gap in WTO history. “I hope that, in the future, we can do better and move faster, as 22 countries are currently wanting to accede to the WTO.”
The DG stressed that Comoros brought a great deal to the WTO. In addition to being a member of the African Union, the Indian Ocean state is a member of both the Francophonie and the Arab League. On the latter, she underlined the significance of WTO members welcoming Comoros as a new member at the next Ministerial Conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The DG said that as a future WTO member, Comoros would need to shift focus towards how best to leverage the benefits of membership.
The Minister for Post, Telecommunications and Digital Economy, and Head of the Delegation of Comoros, said: “Our accession to the WTO should not be seen as an end in itself, but rather as the starting point for another, even more ambitious project. That of modernising the financial management of our public administration to bring it into line with the commitments we made to join the WTO, and to make it an effective tool for development.
“In this context, more than ever before, we are urgently seeking the technical and financial support of all our bilateral and multilateral partners to make our accession to the WTO a new and powerful lever for development to make Comoros an emerging country by 2030,” the Minister added.
Background
Comoros is a least-developed country (LDC) in the Indian Ocean, with a population of approximately 820,000. The Government of the Union of the Comoros applied for accession to the WTO in February 2007, and the Working Party was established in October 2007. In October 2013, the country submitted its Memorandum on the Foreign Trade Regime. The first meeting of the Working Party on the Accession of the Union of the Comoros was held on 02 December 2016.